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Friday, December 13, 2013

VICTORY! - Comcast/NBCU and ABA Coverage

In the letter, I
pleaded with Mr. Roberts and Mr. Burke as fathers to do the right thing and
voluntarily elect meaningful autism benefits (ABA) to our company’s self-funded
insurance plan.

I can honestly say that
I thought I would be fired.

There were a few
things in my favor. My new boss has been a friend since 1995 and I went to him
before I released the letter and asked him for his advice before I published
it. He was incredibly supportive as were all of my fellow employees.

I was also lucky
enough as many of you know to develop great friendships with the Autism Speaks
Government Relations Team. Peter Bell (no longer with Autism Speaks), Lorri
Unumb, Mike Wasmer, Judith Ursitti and Shelley Hendrix are not just people that
work at AS to me... they are my friends. They are my mentors and my confidants.
They fed me so much information over the past 2 years and gave me so much support,
that I do not believe for one second that I would have known how to go about
pressuring my employer to change their policy. They stood ready to go and meet
with Comcast/NBCU and explain how adding meaningful autism benefits would be a
win/win for the company.

My friendship with
them stemmed from my
receiving the Speak Out Award in 2011 for “Fixing” Autism. I have written about
the meaning behind the video before, but I will save you the time and let you
know that the video was about autism insurance reform and my anger at my
insurance provider for denying Bianca continued speech therapy because she was
not showing “Significant improvement”. While some erroneously thought I somehow
viewed autistic people as being broken, I was in fact talking about the system
and how unfair, unjust, discriminatory and flawed it was for autistic people.

It took a while after releasing the letter, but on June 20th, things
started to move. I received an email at work from the VP of Human Resources at
NBCU Patricia Langer saying that CEO Steve Burke had seen the letter and that
she had been instructed to reach out to me. If there was anything she could do,
"Let me know" she said.

I was cautiously optimistic, and it seemed well founded as my repeated request
for Lorri and her team to meet with NBCU was not well received. I sent emails
and left voicemails but communication with Ms. Langer stopped. It left a pit in
my stomach. I was certain that my begging for the addition of meaningful autism
benefits was falling on deaf ears.

In the meantime, I
considered leaving my dream job. I had applied for a position at another
television station and was a finalist. Ultimately I did not get offered that
job. I was honest with my potential new employer and told them that I was not
certain that I could even accept the position if offered. I would have to
compare what benefits were offered and decide on what was best for my daughter.
I knew from a friend who worked there and has a son on the spectrum that there
was no ABA benefit at the place I was applying. If I let the job I loved, it
would be mostly for the money. While I was being told that I did not get the
job, the person I was interviewing with (whom I have known for many years and
worked for in the past) informed me to keep an eye on the job postings because
he thought something else may come up and insinuated that the job was mine if I
wanted it.

This job would have
increased my salary by almost 42%. It would have made things much easier for my
family financially. After much discussion with my family, I decided not to
pursue another job. I still had work to do, and I felt like if I left I would
be quitting on more than just a job. I would be quitting what has been a mission
of mine for the past 3 years to get Comcast/NBCU, a Fortune 100 company to
voluntarily elect to provide meaningful autism coverage.

As open enrollment came, I saw nothing in our benefits package that showed a
change in coverage as it applied to autism and it made me very angry. I felt
dejected and defeated. I have been running low on advocacy energy lately with a
bunch of personal and financial challenges and conflicts and quite frankly, I
did not know if I had another run left in me. Not pursuing a change in
employment looked like it was coming back to haunt me after a summer that saw
our central air need to be replaced, our man-van die and the roof on our house
start to disintegrate. On top of that the freelance work that used to help me
supplement my income was now all dried up.

Just for kicks... as I
have done every year for the past 4 years I called Acollade and asked them if
they would look into whether or not ABA therapy would be covered in 2014. After
being placed on a short hold the voice on the other end said, "Oh yes...
here it is. Yes we will be covering ABA therapy. It is something new for 2014.
It will be covered at 85% after deductible for in-network and 65% out of
network."

I thought I had heard
wrong. I was sitting at my desk in our busy newsroom and broke down. I am sure
the lady on the other end thought I needed help. She sounded very concerned for
me. The production assistant that was sitting across from me at work tried to
act as though she did not notice a 250 pound man blubbering like a baby. I
asked her to please verify... and she did. She even put me in touch with
somebody from Magellan who will be handling ABA.

We are still waiting
for all of the details... are there age limits, what is the dollar cap? But the
coverage alone is fantastic.

I did find out that
the change in coverage is for ALL Comcast/NBCU employees.

That is around 130,000
employees. At 1 in 88, we can estimate that the benefit could positively impact somewhere close to 1500
families. 1500 kids. 1500 people that deserve every possibility to reach their
full potential. That is simply remarkable. With the addition of one tiny
benefit approximately 1500 kids have a 47% chance of reaching a
normal IQ.

On a personal note, it
was so great being able to deliver this news to my wife. She has been more
deserving of some good news than anybody I know. This has been a very difficult
year for her. On top of our financial challenges, her parents are in failing
health. But hearing the joy in her voice when I gave her the news that ABA was
going to be covered… let me just say… it was a great sound.

I will be completely honest. I do not know if my letter had any impact. I do not know if the change in coverage was already happening and I just happened to publish my open letter... but I know this. I don't care. It doesn't matter WHY it happened. I don't want credit, I don't need to receive a pat on the back. I am just glad it happened.

Thanks again to Lorri Unumb and my friends at Autism Speaks.

Thank
you Patricia Langer Executive Vice President of Human Resources at NBCU.

Thank
you to Brian Roberts and Steve Burke.

What
you have done with this simple addition in coverage is a game changer on the
autism health insurance reform landscape.